While considering options on how to address empty storefronts on Main Street, members of the Pendleton City Council weighed the goal of improving the downtown area against private property rights.
The city council met Tuesday, Nov. 12, for a second work session with Charles Denight, Pendleton Urban Renewal associate director, to discuss how to create policies to promote commercial building occupancy in the downtown area.
Denight said if the council plans to proceed then it has to weigh in on how to develop restrictions on property owners who leave their storefronts empty.
Denight told the council the bigger issue is “whether people feel comfortable having an ordinance that would fine or charge a fee to building owners who don’t actively participate in trying to get their storefronts occupied when they’re empty.”
According to the staff report, the empty storefronts are a particular problem around the first block of South Main Street.
City Manager Robb Corbett said the city has had problems for years with particular building owners who neglect their buildings and make no effort to rent the space. Empty stores include the former Wicked Kitty, Mosa and Academy Mortgage spaces.
“I think there’s a problem with forcing people into commerce that use the property and choose to not engage in commerce,” City Councilor Dale Primmer said. “I think there’s a fundamental property rights issue here that bothers me.”
City Councilor Sally Brandsen said the council’s goal is to revitalize downtown.
“People don’t buy a house next to a home if they don’t like how that neighborhood is, or how it looks. That’s a personal thing,” she said. “Downtown is public, and it’s for everyone. We’re trying to provide tourism, we’re trying to get foot traffic, we’re trying to support all the businesses.”
According to the staff report, vacant storefronts lead to a decline in community standards, affect economic development, depress property values and reduce the attractiveness of the area as a place to shop and dine.
“I think if we want to keep it downtown and to keep a dense commerce, we can’t just sit by as people mistreat their social responsibility that comes with owning a building with Main Street or downtown frontage,” City Councilor Addison Schulberg said.
Primmer said although commercial property is the council’s present priority, he is concerned about future councilors wanting to regulate residential space.
“Where are the guardrails?” he asked.
Pendleton Mayor John Turner said he has wrestled with that same issue.
Turner said he attended a League of Oregon Cities conference Oct. 17-19 where he learned from other mayors that some cities are either working on or have passed ordinances that address vacant properties.
Warrenton, near Astoria, enacted a local law stating vacant buildings are a cause and source of blight in residential and nonresidential neighborhoods, especially when the person in charge of the building fails to maintain and manage the building to ensure it does not become a liability to the neighborhood.
“It’s really a speck in our building property inventory. Why would anybody not want to rent their spaces and make money from that rent? It’s because they have some special issue,” Denight said. “In one case, the special issue is an owner who doesn’t like us and then the other is an owner who lives far away from here, who inherited the building, has probably minimal property tax costs, and couldn’t be bothered to come up and take a look at it and do something about trying to fix it up and get it amended.”
City attorney Nancy Kerns said she would draft an ordinance that required store owners to communicate with Denight or other city agents and instruct the building owners to submit a plan for their property and provide details of the condition of their storefront. Failure to do so, Kerns said, would result in a penalty.
After Kerns drafts an ordinance, the council will decide if the vacant storefront regulations should be moved to a third work session or a first public reading.
